Dread Wolf's Blessing
by Hahren Jezek
Summary: The origin of Ynaevir, the reclusive Dalish companion that assisted the famed Warden in his victory against the Archdemon.
1. Act 1, Prologue

Prologue – Act 1, Childhood's Hour

Fen'Harel prowled the darkest places of the world, black eyes not projecting any light at all as he watched them. They were digging. They were always digging, but as his nose told him, things were growing quite dire. Soon, they would find him.

The Dread Wolf could smell the Old God beneath the earth, and if he strained his ears, he could hear the faint calling, but straining for too long gave him a headache.

Flicking his tail, the Trickster watched from a shadow that was deeper than the other shadows, remaining entirely unnoticed by the darkspawn, engrossed as they were in their endless task. Some used corrupted tools and makeshift shovels to try and dig—most of them resorted to simply clawing at the ground until their nails broke off and their hands bled too much for them to get a purchase. Their pained cries and frustrated shrieks filled the cavern with a deadly, ominous chorus.

It wouldn't be long now.

Turning from them, Fen'Harel trotted back up through the earth, and north into Ferelden, where this doom was destined to be unleashed. He knew because he had seen it. He existed in all times and none of them all at once, as all gods did—but unlike the other gods, Fen'Harel could walk in the world of men.

There was hope, a chance that the world might yet be able to survive the catastrophe.

As Fen'Harel stood on the banks of the massive lake, he stared out at the tower, rising up from the smallest of islands within the water. A mage, he knew, would play a large part. He was a man that would care for his companions, but never forget the severity of his task, and he would know all too well what the costs were, and for that, he would give everything.

But this man was nothing but a boy at the moment—a boy with a strange and terrible gift, destined to be locked away in the tower, separated from the rest of the world for the majority of his life.

There were others Fen'Harel could see.

Their souls burned brightly in his mind's eye, and The Dread Wolf examined each of them in turn, seeming satisfied with what chance and happenstance would offer him and the rest of the world as a saving grace. There was one soul in particular that caught his attention and held it—but given that the boy was One of the People, this was expected. Turning his head, The Dread Wolf plodded slowly towards the brecilian forests, unblinking eyes zeroed in on that shimmering light, watching the glimmer of the soul fondly across time and space.

Yes, he would do very well, but then… There was a problem.

He was not meant to survive childhood.


	2. Act 1, Chapter 1

**In Childhood's Hour**

Ynaevir

10

"Lethallin, come on, get down from there! The hunters are back!" Gheyna called out to him, hitting her palm against the base of the tree Ynaevir had scaled earlier that morning to escape his chores, looking out at the halla pen as the newest baby found his legs and walked in the middle of the herd. From his perch, Ynaevir leaned over, peering down at the red-haired girl, and then off to where she pointed. Sure enough, three of the older Dalish were returning, all of their faces unmarked.

The three of them dragged with them, quite laboriously, a relatively young adult bear.

"Come on, you're so slow!" the younger child chirped, dashing off down the clearing, disappearing between two aravels to get as close as she could to the returning hunting party, a sharp rock clasped in her spare hand, ready to try and snatch a bit of bear fur when the opportunity was ripe.

Adjusting the flimsy, dirt-covered linen shorts that were ill-fitting after his last growth spurt, the eight year old boy shimmied down the tree, letting himself fall for the most part. The return of a hunting party was always an exciting event for the children of the clan—they viewed this one much the same as any other, with the added bonus of getting to watch as Zathrian marked each of the returning elves with the vallaslin, a testament to successfully reaching adulthood and becoming contributing members of the clan.

That was the part that Ynaevir liked.

He did not like to see the dead animals very much. It made him upset.

Following the path Gheyna had taken, the taller boy nearly smacked himself in the face once he rounded the corner of the aravel, only just managing to duck underneath the protruding board of the dwelling. The path to the gathering was short, all he had to do was skip over the posts that extended from the backs of the aravels, avoid tripping over a satchel of dried berries, and make his way down the low rise. Joining the others, he stooped down at the waist to try and peer between the legs of the adults, dark brows furrowing. The clan gathered around the returning hunters, the slightest of smiles on their faces, and pride in their eyes, but there was no cheering or hollering of praise.

"Well done, Bel'len. You've honored Andruil with this kill, and will honor your clan with your actions, of that I am sure," Zathrian said, striding through the throngs of the Dalish gathered, coming to stand in front of the three adolescents, all of which touched their hearts and dipped their heads to the Keeper—the only elf to have discovered the secret to their long lost immortality.

Ynaevir crawled forward between the legs of the adults, coming to crouch with Gheyna and her brother, Ghedan. Her brother was Ynaevir's age, perhaps a little older, and the two boys did not get along very well.

"Aw, Gheyna! What'd you go inviting him for?" Ghedan complained in a hissed whisper, elbowing his younger sister and then running his hand through his mop of strawberry blonde hair, sparing Ynaevir the barest of disgusted glances before setting his sights on the bear once more.

"I'm going to try to get a claw," he announced, promptly forgetting how much Ynaevir's presence irritated him in favor of showing both of them how sneaky he could be to get one of the much sought after claws for his own.

"—Not supposed to do that…" Ynaevir mumbled, almond-shaped eyes fixed on the ground between Ghedan and Gheyna rather than looking directly at either one of them. Whenever his eyes accidentally touched theirs, his gaze quickly slithered away, roving about the legs of the adults, instead, as though they were far more interesting. Slow to warm up to others, Ynaevir had been marked as an odd child from a very early age, and the label had stuck with him as he had grown. It caused him some grief with other children, but adults treated him exactly the same as the other children, with remarkable patience for his avoidance and slowed responses. It was simply his nature, like it was the nature of the wind to weave through the trees in the early morning, and how it was the nature of the rabbit to sit idly, twitching its whiskers and tail before bounding away with lightning quickness.

Children, without the wisdom of adults, were not nearly so forgiving, and Ghedan was no exception. Tolerating the taller boy only because sometimes he felt he needed an audience, and that that audience needed to be more than just his younger sister, Ghedan often made it a point to remind Ynaevir that he was, at best, his own personal charity case.

Much to Ghedan's ire, it seemed as though Ynaevir had very nearly stopped caring two years prior.

"Don't be such a spoil-sport," Ghedan rolled his eyes, crawling forward as the new hunters were led forward by Zathrian and the Hahrens, leaving the prized bear unguarded and left for the crafters to strip it of anything and everything that was useful. The bear's blood, what they could get from it at this point, would be mixed with the ink used to tattoo the faces of each of the new young hunters. A claw, Ghedan rationalized, wouldn't be missed, and it would look very nice around his neck.

"It's okay, Ynaevir, everyone is supposed to get something, right?" Gheyna tried to reassure him, smiling up at the dark-haired boy and bumping her hip against him, nearly knocking him over. The older boy flicked his eyes at her, then quickly moved them away, forcing an uneasy smile and nodding slowly. That was true, in a way. A kill was used in some capacity for the entire clan. Need came before greed, and it was a system that had worked very well for quite some time.

The problem was that Ghedan did not need the claw, just as Gheyna did not need a small bit of fur, and the children were the very last of those permitted to loot corpses. This ensured that the crafters had their pickings of whatever they needed to make their tools and trades before a child snatched something up and ran off with it, promptly losing it in the bed of a creek.

Reluctantly, the tall, sinewy boy followed after the two red-haired children, crouching down behind them and watching as the adults took their time around the bear, several of them struggling to heft up its furry haunches so that another could cut the throat and drain whatever blood was available. Luckily, the kill was fresh enough, and a small wooden bowl was filled to capacity with blood that hadn't coagulated just yet.

The sight of the bear's lifeless eyes staring at him while the knife hacked open its throat made Ynaevir feel somewhat queasy, and he looked off to the left, trying to focus on the halla in their round pen while the 'gross stuff' was handled by the adults. The round pen was, as expected, much the same as always, with the great white deer plodding lazily from here to there, munching on fresh leaves and twigs, soft eyes looking from each other to the elves that they cohabitated with.

Ynaevir liked the Halla. They were sweet and affectionate, and enjoyed nosing his hands and nibbling at the top of his head whenever he walked with them, petting them fondly. The best part was that he never had to see any of the hunters kill one of them or cut them open. The very worst he had seen was a halla that was very old lying down after nuzzling the tender of the hallas, as though in thanks, and deciding to drift into a deep sleep that he never did wake up from. Ynaevir had been young at the time, perhaps four or five, but he remembered the mournful sighs of the halla as they had gathered around their very own hahren.

It was never like that when the hunters returned with wolves, badgers, bears, or gigantic cats. For a brief moment when everyone was still gathering around the animal, it looked vaguely peaceful, but once the hacking and blood draining and skinning began, Ynaevir lost any and all desire to be around the scene. Having an unfortunately low constitution seemed a curse that would never leave the boy, and some adults wondered openly exactly how he would fare years down the road when his own hunt occurred.

"You can look for a little while, Ynaevir, Varathorn forgot his skinning knife," Gheyna whispered to him, cupping her hand at the base of his obnoxiously long ear, as though it were some great secret that she were telling the other child.

Hesitantly, Ynaevir stole a glance at the carcass of the bear, its throat cut open and still draining slowly onto the dirt. Thankfully, once the hunters had set his haunches down once again, the flow of blood was much slower than it could have been. Making a face, Ynaevir crept forward along with the other two children, squatting by the mouth of the bear and picking up the tip of its tongue with his fingers, trying to delicately place it back inside of its powerful maw—which, as it turned out, was impossible for the boy to shut entirely. Growing anxious at this, Ynaevir fidgeted and had to make himself look at the halla again, dark brows lowered will ill feelings that he didn't understand.

Ghedan, meanwhile, took the opportunity to tug a massive paw into his lap, examining the claws at length to try and pick out the very best one for himself. At last, he made his choice, isolating that toe and forcing it to extend, snatching a da'mi from off of the ground to try and cut into the toe and remove the claw without damaging it.

"And I suppose you lot are helping Varathorn and Master Leyradan?" a skeptical voice startled the three children, causing all of their faces, filled with a strange mix of guilt and youthful innocence to turn towards Danyla. The woman smiled down at them, causing the branches of her tattoo to shift and wrinkle, lifting up towards the sky, it seemed.

"Here, Ghedan, you'll never get the claw cutting it like that," she chided the oldest boy, coming to squat beside him, placing her callused hands over his and guiding them through the task, patting his back as though he were a babe in need of a burping once he happily picked up the freed claw.

The anxiety in the pit of his stomach settled some when Ynaevir focused on the woman that had nursed him during infancy, and he crept closer to the woman, trying to hold one of her hands once she had finished helping Ghedan with his task. He still did not meet her gaze, but continued to look out at the halla, watching as a mother nipped at the flank of her own baby with her lips, chiding the calf to get it to stand up again from where it had settled and move out of the rest of their way.

"You know, Gheyna, I'm getting a portion of the pelt. I'd thought about making some gloves with it, but if you were very sweet, I could try to fit the fur into a pair of boots for you, instead." Danyla gripped Ynaevir's hand in return, moving her arm to pull the boy closer against her side, but not forcing him to turn to look at the body of the bear.

Gheyna, as it happened, was enthralled by this idea, and after kissing Danyla's cheek, she sprinted off to go and brag to her brother, who was discovering rather quickly that he had another dilemma—how was he supposed to clean the claw and punch a hole through it to tie it to the leather thong he had?

"Are you alright, Da'len?" Danyla's soothing voice roused Ynaevir, and his head tipped back so that he could look up at the corner of her eye, nodding his head slowly and leaning the side of his head against the soft mounds of her chest, listening to her heartbeat thrumming.

"I'm glad we don't kill the halla," Ynaevir murmured, running his thumb over a particularly rough callus on Danyla's fingertip as she held the boy who was, for all intents and purposes, the closest thing she had to a child of her own.

"I think that Ghilan'nain would have very stern words to say about that," Danyla smiled, looking off in the direction that Ynaevir had been staring, blinking at what was, to her, a less than remarkable sight. A hunter first and a mother second, Danyla didn't always understand the gentle nature of Ynaevir, but it seemed that Mythal had blessed her thus far with the patience and love to wait for him to explain himself. As she watched, a mother halla draped its neck over the shoulders of her calf.

Ynaevir shrugged, fidgeting restlessly in Danyla's arms, growing upset once more when Varathorn returned with the proper skinning knife, prepared to get into the truly gory portions of the work. Seeing this, Danyla drew in a deep breath and placed a kiss at the top of his head, patting Ynaevir on the back before standing and pulling the boy to his feet as well.

"Why don't you go and play with Gheyna and Ghedan, Da'len? The three of you could go to the stream that you helped Hahren Vita wash cloths in the other day," Danyla suggested, gently pushing him in the direction of the other two children. He was reluctant to leave her, she could see as much by the way that he stiffened, but the sound of Varathorn settling down to work with a heavy sigh was enough of a push to send him quickly skittering off towards the other children. Danyla watched them for several moments, taking note of the usual affectionate and welcoming greeting that Gheyna gave her friend and playmate, and the eye-roll that Ghedan loved to practice on Ynaevir whenever he could.

Placing a hand over her womb that no longer bled, Danyla slowly turned back towards Varathorn, smiling as her mate, Athras, joined them to help in the skinning.

"That boy, Ynaevir—he's never going to get his vallaslin if he doesn't get over his squeamishness." Varathorn said as he worked, sighing in exasperation at the sloppy cut someone had used to drain the blood from the neck. "He's not got it in him to be a hunter. Won't find a mate, won't be trusted to pass knowledge to children—he'll always be a child." He went on, and Danyla wasn't sure if he was speaking more to himself or to her and Athras, as well.

"He'll be fine," Danyla murmured, squatting down to help hold the bear still for Varathorn to work. His hands were steadier than her own when it came to crafts, as blessed by June as he was. "I remember the first time you saw an animal gutted, Varathorn. You bent right down and threw up." She teased the older man, smiling gently as she looked up at him.

Varathorn and Athras both shared a chuckle at the memory, but it was short-lived as a more somber thought settled over the three of them. It was true that the gruesome work was a startle the first time, or perhaps the second as well, but it was mandatory work that they grew used to.

Ynaevir, it seemed, never would.

So much of Dalish life was centered around the hunt, and if not the hunt itself, the jobs that the clansmen held were a result of the hunt. If he wasn't favored by Andruil, that was fine—many Dalish didn't have the eye, ear, or skill for the hunt, but Sylaise and June were the siblings of Andruil, and the gods of the hunt, hearth, and craft all worked together to achieve great things, and harmony among the clan. Ynaevir could not kill an animal, and it seemed that he could not watch as one that was already dead was tended to. What left for him was there, despite what Varathorn had said, remaining a child in the clan for the rest of his life, contributing very little, and being trusted with nothing? That was not the life of the Dalish.

To Danyla, and to many others, something like that wasn't much of a life at all.

Swallowing her concern, Danyla touched her shoulder to Athras, leaning against him and looking out to the halla pen once more, trying to see what it was that Ynaevir saw when the boy looked in on the gentle creatures. The calf was up to its antics once more, strutting around and trodding on the edges of hooves, braying loudly and starting to bounce itself off to the edge of the pen. Still unable to see, Danyla shook her head, attention turned back to the messy job ahead of them.

With her eyes downcast, and her attention focused on the bear beneath them, Danyla never saw the calf bounce itself right over the low fence posts of the pen, and down the side of the hill, braying a victory chant all the while, drifting farther and farther from his mother, who watched him warily until he was out of sight, and then brayed loudly, calling out to him, trying to get her baby to come back to her.

The keeper of the halla sighed, picking up her staff and slumping off in the direction the halla had taken, determined to drag the calf back to the group by his nostrils for the third time that week.

Across the camp, Gheyna, Ghedan, and Ynaevir yipped and cheered giddily as they skipped over the low slope and around the bend, deep into the brecilian forest and off on their latest adventure.


	3. Act 1, Chapter 2

**In Childhood's Hour**

Ynaevir

10

The three children took the easiest path to the stream, winding their way through trees that stood three times the height of high dragons, each of them pretending in turn that they were some sort of mythical forest creature, and that this was their territory to roam, stomping around to lay claim to it. Ynaevir liked these games, as they did not involve fighting. More often than not, when a 'play-fight' broke out among the children, it was Ynaevir who suffered the bruised faces and bloodied noses, and it was Ynaevir whose scuffs and scrapes were on the border of bullying instead of mere accident.

Whether he felt bullied or not, he didn't say.

The children crawled underneath a particularly large fallen log, and when Gheyna's foot got caught underneath it, they paused to help extract her. Ghedan used his arrowhead to hack at the brambles and roots, and Ynaevir used delicate hands to try and pull her ankle free. Thinking himself quite mature for having supposedly led the extraction event, Ghedan's chest was puffed out a little more than usual. Leading them onward, despite it being Ynaevir's idea, they sat on their rear ends and slid down the steeper of the dirt hills and ridges, unconcerned for the extensive scrubbing their linens would need to be free of muck once more.

Two miles out from camp, they managed to reach the stream without any of them getting caught in anything else. The stream was lovely and peaceful, as always. Far too small to be a river—a grown elf could have made it across with a running leap if he were particularly athletic—but too clear and swift to be a creek, the Dalish favored this stream for all of their tasks, marveling at how clear the water always ran. The children entertained themselves on the stream bank, searching for pretty shells amidst the wet pebbles. Squirrels chattered and frisked about across the trunks of the great trees, chasing each other around and around, trying to figure out which among them was the fittest and toughest squirrel.

The birds chirped idly, sitting in the higher branches and tipping their heads as they stared down at the children at the riverbank, watching them as they played and dug up shiny pebbles and clam shells. A particularly loud, excited screech from Gheyna as she hoisted up a golden clam shell made their feathers ruffled, but after the initial excitement died down, the birds went back to their business of observing, sometimes swooping down to pick up a worm that the children had managed to unearth for them without knowing it.

While the Elvhenn had long since lost their immortality, it seemed that the forest retained it. The oppressive feeling of the dark secrets held within the woods was lost on the children, as they had grown up in the brecilian forests and called them their dearest home. They had known nothing else. As the elvhenn lived and died, the forest remained, unchanging, except to grow thicker and wilder at its heart, concealing some terrible wrath that hadn't yet reached its breaking point.

Unaware of any of this, Ynaevir squatted down and leaned his head over between his knees, grimy, dirt-slicked fingers digging again inside of the muck to pull out their latest treasure. In his hand rested a circular snail shell, bleached white, save for pale shimmers of blues and pinks intermingled, so delicate and fine that even the trained eyes of the Dalish had trouble making out the mother-of-pearl texture.

"Gheyna, I found one!" he called out to the red-haired girl, smiling and stealing a glance at her, quickly looking to the side and holding his hand out for her to see when he accidentally made eye contact with her.

Uncaring of the typical avoidance, Gheyna skipped over and squatted down beside him, taking his hand and poking at the snail shell, her head tipping curiously. After a moment, she giggled and held out a tiny pouch filled with other tiny shells of varying sizes, types, and colors.

"I'm going to get Hahren Vita and Danyla to show me how to make a necklace!" she decided, then tentatively felt the weight of her pouch, looking over to where Ghedan was trying to harass squirrels by throwing pebbles at them, making them skitter around the trunks of the trees.

"I bet I've got enough to make you something, too, Ynaevir! Hey—Ghedan, stop that! The squirrels don't like it, and you know what Hahren Vita said about harassing animals!" Gheyna warned him sternly, standing up straight and putting her hands on her hips, her nose wrinkling at her older brother. Ghedan, it seemed, was less interested in being lectured and told what to do, and more interested in seeing what would happen if he actually managed to hit a squirrel with one of the rocks. Flinging another pebble, he was startled to hear the loud, offended chattering of a particularly large squirrel, and even more alarmed when it leapt and bound across the bank and to the trees on his side of the river, screaming at him from the lower hanging branches.

"I told you so, Ghedan!"

"Just hush up, Gheyna, I was only trying to play with them," the oldest of the children muttered sourly. Unwilling to risk the wrath of such a large critter, he decided to try and find something else to do. His solution was to harass the frog.

"I'm gonna give you warts, Gheyna!" he called out, pouncing and clasping the frog, sprinting after his squealing sister and bowling over Ynaevir in the process, who scrambled to try and grab Gheyna's pouch before it tumbled into the stream and was lost forever. Breathing a sigh of relief when the fruits of their labor was safely clutched in his hands, Ynaevir stood up, green eyes following the siblings as Ghedan chased after Gheyna with the giant frog held out in front of him. Gheyna, as it would turn out, was none too keen on having warts, and did her best to keep one of the tree trunks between Ghedan and herself at all times, not trusting her brother when he put the frog behind his back and promised to quit.

"I think it peed on you, Ghedan," Ynaevir called out, trying to distract the older boy.

His methods were tried and true. While he didn't enjoy being around Ghedan very much, and found the other boy to be tiresome and short-sighted, he knew enough to know that it was better to play nicely with anyone who decided to spend more than five minutes with him, even if it was supposedly out of pity, or a need to boost their own inflated ego. Besides, having Ghedan around seemed to remind Gheyna that while Ynaevir was odd at times, he was much more fun to play with than most of the other children, thanks to his agreeable nature and kind heart, and the way that he was unconcerned with all of the things that seemed to tie the rest of the boys and girls up. They all wanted to be grown-ups and go off on their own hunts. Ynaevir was fine with being a child while he was a child, and that was refreshing for Gheyna.

Blinking in wonder, Ghedan immediately stopped chasing Gheyna, who took it upon herself to sneak back around to the stream bed behind Ynaevir, washing her hands off in the water just in case frog juice had gotten on her during the chase. Turning around, Ghedan tried to see the backs of his britches to see if Ynaevir was telling the truth. The problem was that he couldn't quite make it out. Huffing impatiently, he set down his prized frog and tried again to twist, only to whine and sulk when that, too was unsuccessful.

"Yes, I see it there. He peed." Ynaevir informed him grimly, pointing at the spot that Ghedan would never be able to see. Gheyna, still behind Ynaevir, narrowed her eyes and tried to peer at the unseen spot. After a brief moment, she caught onto Ynaevir's game and nodded her head quickly, pointing as well.

"I don't think that stain is ever going to come out, Ghedan, everyone is going to think that you had a wet poo on yourself!" she exclaimed, eyes wide with feigned seriousness in this absolutely dire predicament that her brother had found himself in, just as he had deserved.

The squirrel chattered loudly from the tree, its tail fluffed up thrice its usual size.

She agreed whole-heartedly, apparently.

Unsure if he was more infuriated by the fact that he would forever be known as the Wet Poop Boy or that it would be his own fault if he was, Ghedan abruptly bent down and picked up a larger pebble, throwing it with all of his might at Ynaevir and hitting him in the side with it. Yelping in pain, the younger boy jumped and clutched at his side, looking over at Ghedan's feet with a hurt expression. Slinking backwards, his shoulders hunched up defensively, and very slowly, he averted his gaze.

"That wasn't nice, Ghedan!" Gheyna shouted at her older brother, standing up and stomping her foot, full of a sense of such righteous anger, known only to children. With her face and pointed ears growing as red as her hair, Gheyna stepped over to Ynaevir and bent over to put a kiss on the bruised welt that was rising up on his skin. Shooting her brother a scowl, Gheyna reached up and rubbed the back of Ynaevir's abnormally long ears, trying to remember the gentle way she had petted the rabbit that Danyla had showed her during the last moon cycle. The rabbit had thumped its foot in appreciation, and while Ynaevir wasn't quite as active in his appreciation of her doting, there was the barest of smiles on his lips. It was sometimes hard to guess whether or not Ynaevir would accept touch. Most of the time, he didn't seem to want to look her in the face, and while he tolerated her when she crammed herself up against him on the off chance that they took an afternoon nap, Gheyna imagined that Ynaevir wasn't wildly fond of anything.

He had such bright, pretty eyes. She wasn't sure why he didn't like people looking into them.

"He said I had frog pee on me!" Ghedan protested, trying to stamp his foot with as much vigor as Gheyna had in her righteous fury, but failing. He knew that his fit was wrong, but he hated being the one that was laughed at or picked on. Like all bullies, he lived in constant fear of the boot being placed on the opposite foot. That was why it was easy to play with Ynaevir and Gheyna—neither of them were frequent in fighting back.

It was just another reason that their partnership in this moment made him angry.

"That's because you did, poop elf," Gheyna snarled at him severely, her eyes scorching him before they returned to her friend, who was still staring off across the stream with a very distant but keenly aware look in his eyes, and a tenseness to his body that said he was ready for some sort of action, even if the mild-mannered way that he rubbed his side said otherwise.

"Come on, Ynaevir," Gheyna decided, her chin tipping upwards, "We can go back to camp and leave the poop elf here all by himself until he's done throwing his fit," Gheyna refused to look at her brother. She could remember the last time she had thrown a fit, and all of the adults had completely ignored her until she had calmed down and gotten over the imagined slight—she didn't appreciate their methods at the time, but they had worked, and now it seemed that she could give Ghedan the exact same lesson.

"You can not!" Ghedan shouted, his face growing redder as he bent to pick up another pebble, his arm reeling back to throw it at the back of Gheyna's head.

Seeing this, Ynaevir made a face and quickly jerked Gheyna to his other side. Ghedan's aim was good, but Ynaevir was an entire head and a half taller than the little girl, despite being close to the same age, and the smooth rock hit him in the shoulder blade, instead. Still, the faint whine he let out as he stared again across the stream was more than enough of a testament to how hard Ghedan was able to throw things.

"That's it, Ghedan, I'm going to tell The Keeper on you, and then he'll exile you for sure this time!" Gheyna shrilled, startled and outraged, huffing and breathing loudly as she poked her head out from behind the wiry body of her friend. It was at least twice a week that Gheyna requested an audience with Zathrian, most often to tell him of the latest terrible, unforgiveable thing that her older brother had done to her, such as putting berry paste into her hair, a gardner snake into her boot, and now, throwing rocks that were surely meant to kill her. Each time, The Keeper listened to her with a grave seriousness, nodding slowly as she recounted Ghedan's horrible crimes, and each time, he ended their conversations with a solemn promise to give some thought to her request to exile her older brother.

Trying to drown out the arguing of brother and sister now that it seemed the most dangerous of rock throwing was over, Ynaevir's eyes remained trained across the stream, but eventually he ran out of interesting things to stare at, and had to turn his head to look up at the slope that they had slid down on their behinds to get to the bank. What he saw standing atop the slops startled him so much at first that he was certain he was just imagining things, but as he kept staring, and the white wolf kept staring back, he was less and less sure of the powers of his imagination.

Silently, Ynaevir reached out to hold onto Gheyna's shoulder with one hand, interrupted her account of the last time she had spoken with The Keeper, and how she was absolutely sure that this would be the final straw that sealed the deal on Ghedan's exile, and pointed with his other hand up to the wolf on the ridge.

Gheyna gave a jolt and a gasp, her mouth opening as her eyes widened. She had never seen a wolf that was alive so close before. It seemed so much larger since it was standing up on all of its paws instead of slumped in the middle of the camp, waiting to get skinned and stripped of anything useful. She shrank back against Ynaevir, who, as he often did, kept staring in that direction.

Ghedan was already shaken; terrified that what his sister was saying about his impending exile would come true, and so when he looked up on the ridge, his reaction to the wolf was more severe than the other two children. Clapping his hands over his mouth to keep from shouting, he stumbled over to the other two, trying to stand behind Ynaevir, and yet look like he was standing in front of the other boy all at once. In the end, he decided that it was much too hard to pretend to be a brave hunter, and so he hung back, finally happy to just be a child.

The wolf held all of them with her intense gaze. She never blinked, but looked each child over with interest, stepping up to the very edge of the ledge and looking down at them, her tail swaying slowly behind her, unconcerned. She knew them. She knew all of them, as she knew all of the Dalish. Licking her lips, the wolf tilted her head, her dark amber eyes coming back to rest on the only dark-haired child.

First the runt to make Him pause and think, and then the prized and well-loved lambs to spur Him into action.

Her course of action decided, the white wolf remained there, staring at the children, knowing well enough that after a time, they would grow bolder, as children often did. A step closer to goad them on, she tipped her head the other direction, black nose twitching.

Having recovered from the terrible fright, Ghedan kept staring up at the wolf, and the wolf kept staring down at all three of them. His upcoming exile in mind, he had to come up with a plan to keep The Keeper from going through with it, as he surely would. An idea came to him, a small one at first, as his ideas often were, but then it started to grow and fester at a breakneck pace.

"I'm going to catch the wolf," he stated simply, taking a step forward and sizing up both the she-wolf and the slope, his lips pulling to the side. If he caught a wolf all by himself, there was no way that Zathrian could exile him, and the entire clan would be proud of him!

"I wonder if those brambles hurt her," Ynaevir mumbled, mostly to himself, gesturing vaguely towards the way the twisted branches and thorny twigs wound their way around the white wolf's legs, seemingly without a beginning or an end to them. The dark-hair elf tipped his head the same way the wolf did, studying her closely. "Do you think she'd stand still long enough for me to pry those branches off?" he asked, stealing a glance at Gheyna before, as was his way, quickly looking away once more.

Gheyna shook her head slowly. She didn't like the way the wolf looked at them with her all-encompassing gaze, or the feeling of dread that she felt when she looked at the she-wolf, as though her very being would bring with it grief strong enough to break the back of the strongest of Dalish. Reaching out, she took hold of Ynaevir's hand, and then tried to grab Ghedan's wrist, but he wrenched his arm away from her. As was her luck, Ynaevir picked this moment to be shy about contact, drawing both of his hands up to the center of his chest and holding them there.

"I- I don't think we should chase it, guys…"


	4. Act 1, Chapter 3

**In Childhood's Hour**

Ynaevir

10

THE INCIDENT

"I- I don't think we should chase it, guys…" Gheyna tried hesitantly, shifting uncomfortably and drawing back, both of her hands reaching out to grab onto the waist of Ghedan's and Ynaevir's britches, trying to keep the two older boys from charging after the strange white wolf. It had eyes that were so very old…It frightened her. The way that it moved with ease and watched them with steady amber eyes, uncaring of the thorny brush caught around its legs was not natural.

"Aw, Gheyna! Don't be such a seth'lin!" Ghedan taunted. It was his newest favorite phrase, picked up after he had eavesdropped on a hahren teaching lessons to older children. Both Gheyna and Ynaevir were quite tired of hearing it levied at them, and the two other children pulled the corners of their mouths down in protest, refusing to look at the oldest boy.

Ynaevir shifted his gaze back up to the she-wolf on the hill. His toes wriggled and gripped at the grass under his feet, eyes flashing a bright green as the dim light of the moon caught them the right way. As though in response, the white wolf's eyes glimmered a deep amber.

"I've never seen a wolf with eyes like that…" Ynaevir murmured, mostly to himself. By the way Gheyna pressed closer to him, it seemed as though she agreed, and that thought frightened her. "Do you think the brambles are hurting her?" he asked, shifting his eyes down to look back at Gheyna's feet. From his peripheral, he saw her nodding.

"Gods above—you two are gonna get marked with Sylaise!" Ghedan jeered, huffing impatiently and stomping forward. Despite the clans teachings and the fact that every god and goddess was revered equally and respected, Ghedan, among other youths, had decided that some were better than others—like Andruil, goddess of the hunt. Every young would-be hunter seemed bent on getting her markings in their vallaslin.

"You two seth'lins do whatever you want—I'm gonna chase her down and get her tail, maybe I'll even get close enough to cut her throat! Then they'll give me my vallaslin, and I'll be the youngest Dalish to ever get it!" Ghedan exclaimed with vigor, scrambling to dig his arrowhead out of his britches.

Ynaevir paused, shifting uncomfortably and exchanging a rare look with Gheyna, shaking his head rapidly and reaching out to grab onto Ghedan's shoulder.

"You can't do that, Ghedan! She's not harming anything and we're not hunters—"

"You're not, but I will be!" Ghedan swiped his arm back and back-handed Ynaevir across the nose, sending the tall, wiry boy back a few paces, clutching his nose with a whine. Satisfied that neither of them would try to stop him, Ghedan thundered off towards the she-wolf.

Seeing one of the little elves approaching rapidly, the she-wolf waited until he was thirty paces away before she turned, tail raised high, trotting off in the other direction with ease, not at all concerned about the thorny branches wrapped tightly around her legs that seemed to have no beginning and no end to them.

Gheyna whined, hands shaking as her head snapped from her older brother to Ynaevir, still clutching his nose with a scowl on his face. She was frightened of the wolf, and scared to go any farther from the camp. The stream they bathed in was two miles away already, and while all Dalish children, more than accustomed to running about in the woods and playing outside every day of their lives, were far more physically fit than their human counterparts, the dash there had tired her after their long day of playing.

"You go back to the camp and tell Danyla, I'll go get your stupid brother," Ynaevir grumbled sourly, rubbing his sore nose and touching Gheyna's shoulder briefly before he ran after Ghedan. He didn't need to look back to know that Gheyna had been more than happy to comply with his idea. Wearing nothing but his britches, as the Dalish boys were most often seen, Ynaevir was dimly aware of thin twigs from scraggly bushes nearby stinging his sides as he ran after the she-wolf and his clansman, breathing as easily as a grown man sitting up in bed despite the physical exertion. He could hear Ghedan ahead of him, and sometimes he saw the older boy's bare feet kicking up leaves as he sprinted after the unconcerned she-wolf, arrowhead in hand.

"Ghedan!" Ynaevir shouted, bounding easily over the fallen log that he remembered playing inside of not but a week ago.

"That's my wolf, Ynaevir! Don't you try to take anything!" Ghedan snarled over his shoulder at the taller, dark-haired boy, narrowly avoiding running headlong into a tree trunk. Deciding that he could always smack Ynaevir across the nose again if the other boy tried anything, Ghedan resolved to continue watching where he was going as the she-wolf led the two boys farther and farther from camp, and deeper into the night, glancing over her shoulder only once or twice.

After an hour of sprinting, Ynaevir's eyes narrowed at something odd in the distant trees. Light. They were far from camp, and there were no other clans in this part of the forest. It was rare for any other humanoids to be lurking around in the brecilian forest, but he had seen it, once, while the clan was traveling farther east. They passed by a narrow path with their aravels, the halla snorting and chuffing nervously at the smell of humans. An old man and his two sons stood on the opposite side of the path, watching with startled eyes as the entire Dalish clan continued onwards, not concerned over something that wasn't a threat. To make a point, however, Ynaevir remembered seeing Zathrian and one of the hunters glaring hatefully across the ways at the shemlen, bow drawn and arrow knocked.

He had seen something in his Keeper's eyes, then, and it had frightened him back then. A deep seated, seething hatred for the shemlen. Ynaevir had walked up to the old elf, reaching up to try to clasp his hand, though it gripped his gnarled staff with a white-knuckled grip. When Zathrian's eyes had turned on the little boy, it had taken them several moments to register who he was. Ynaevir learned what hate looked like that day.

That moment, seeing his wise and caring leader so overcome with bitterness towards something that he himself didn't understand, Ynaevir had decided that shemlen must have been very terrible. The firelight ahead of them, drawing ever closer the more that they ran, could only belong to shemlen. Ynaevir's palms began to sweat, and the color drained out of the tips of his very long ears, and then out of his face.

"Ghedan, stop, it's—!" Ynaevir cut himself off, dodging around a tree and running headlong into Ghedan's back, forcing both of the boys to fall over onto the ground. The dark-haired elf felt a sharp elbow hit him in the gut, and then Ghedan's hand pushing his face into the dirt.

"Watch where you're going, you seth'lin! You made me lose her!" Ghedan raged, his face redder than the mop of hair on his head as he labored to his feet, huffing impatiently and looking around, trying to spot the white wolf once again. Having no luck, he groaned in frustration and squatted down to retrieve his arrowhead from underneath the kicked-up leaves, glaring balefully at Ynaevir.

"Y'know, this is why me and the older boys never want to do anything with you, you're always messing everything up!" Ghedan informed him grimly, shaking his head and looking away.

Ynaevir sat up and rubbed his cheek, trying to scrape the dirt off of his face and blink it out of his eyes. He was only moderately successful. What Ghedan said was only true in part. Gheyna's brother and the rest of the older boys never wanted to do anything with Ynaevir—but it wasn't because he was clumsy or a bother to be around; it was because he was odd. He had known it for the better part of two winters, and it had stopped bothering him. On the off chance that he wanted to play with anyone, he knew that Gheyna would always play with him, and he felt better around just one or two other people, anyway.

"You shouldn't have been chasing her, anyway, Ghedan, she could have gnawed your face to the bone," Ynaevir grumbled, pushing himself to his feet and growing still. The light of the fire abruptly went out with a loud hiss, and the young elf boy's thin nose twitched. Wet, burnt wood and foliage… that wasn't good.

"Someone knows we're here, Ghedan," Ynaevir whispered, crouching down and trying to get the older boy to do the same. He had seen baby deer do this to avoid being eaten, and it had worked well enough for them. His heart began to thud loudly in his chest, especially when the older boy wrenched his arm away and scowled out into the darkness, gripping his arrowhead a little tighter and sticking his lip out defiantly.

"Tivuni? Is that you out there? I'm gonna tell the Keeper you were just slacking instead of hunting!" Ghedan shouted, completely oblivious to the fact that it might have been someone other than a clansmen. He had never lived his horribly long life of nine years with much fear in his heart. There was no reason to fear.

"Ghedan!" Ynaevir hissed in protest, drawing back and tying to slide underneath a low hanging bush. As his eyes dropped to the ground, they narrowed in confusion. The wolf had come this way, he knew it, but there were no paw prints, no tufts of white hair stuck to tree bark or scraggly bushes… she had vanished as though she had never been.

"Oh, shut up, Ynaevir. Gods, you're worse than Gheyna—"

"Well, well! Heh, it's just a few knife-eared brats," a deep voice rumbled in a sickly sweet, half-slurred tone. Another laugh joined the first, and two bearded shemlen men stepped out from the shadows. One wielded an axe, and the other held two knives in his hands, glancing down from the blades and over to the pointed ears of the two young boys.

"Dark-haired one's got ears twice as long," he mused, seeming to find it quite fascinating.

Ghedan finally seemed to listen to Ynaevir, crouching down instantly and drawing back, first against and then behind Ynaevir, giving the younger boy small pushes to force him out of the bush so that Ghedan could get farther in. It was far too late, though.

"An…Andaran atish'an, we…" Ynaevir stumbled shakily over his introduction, trying to remember what he had heard the Keeper say to a strange visitor that had once stumbled upon the camp—a pregnant shemlen woman. Unlike his blatant hostility towards most shemlen, Zathrian had simply been cold and cordial to this woman, looking frequently at her stomach, and allowing the older women of the clan to try to soothe her, if only for the unborn baby's sake. Even more odd, he had ordered two hunters to escort her out of the forests and to the nearest town.

"We were just chasing that—that wolf," Ynaevir finished lamely, gesturing at a spot where there should have been paw prints, but where none existed.

"Ain't been a wolf 'round here, eh Gerald?" the more muscular man looked over at his smaller, but otherwise identical counterpart.

"No, no wolves. But last week, we did find our brother's body dumped at the edge of the forests," Gerald rumbled, stepping closer and squatting down in front of the cowering boys, forcing a sickly sweet smile as he drummed his fingers on his knees.

Ynaevir tried to stop his quivering, his mouth drawing into a tight line as he stared up at the corner of Gerald's eye, as close to eye contact as he could manage. Ghedan whined behind him, still trying to squirm through the back end of the bush, but the thick center of the foliage blocked his way. The color drained from Ynaevir's face, and a coat of beaded sweat bubbled up on the back of his neck and his upper lip. He remembered hearing the hunters talking to Zathrian in muffled voices the week before—something about a man they had caught trying to gut a halla that had gotten out of the pen and strayed off, the same halla that they had been trying to track for days.

"That's—that's bad, awfully bad, Ir Abelas, ma vhenan," Ynaevir stuttered, worried that he might not have pronounced his sorrow for their loss correctly. "Was it bandits? Sometimes there's bandits in the woods, but we try to scare them away—" Ynaevir stiffened as Gerald's hand reached out and grasped hold of his chin firmly, forcing the young dalish boy to look him in the eyes.

"No. Y'see, bandits take everything. They gut you and take your boots, your clothes, anything that you have on you… Our brother," there was anger starting to creep back into his voice, and Ynaevir felt appalled to see a predatory gleam in the eyes of a humanoid, staring down at him, "Our brother wasn't missing anything. His coins were still in their purse, his boots tied just the way he likes them. Only thing he had…" the shemlen trailed off, still holding fast to Ynaevir's chin as his other hand jabbed between his ribs, poking him hard enough to leave bruises.

"Arrow wounds. 'Bout five of 'em, wouldn't you say, Thomas?" Gerald grunted, shoving Ynaevir back by his face so that the boy fell back on his rear. The human rises to his feet, looking at his larger brother, who was gently petting the innermost portions of his own thigh, staring down at the two elf boys with a glimmer in his eyes that made Ynaevir feel sick to his stomach.

"Yeah, 'bout five, Gerald."

A heavy silence fell over the group for several moments, the round eyes of the humans, unaccustomed to the darkness, straining to see clear enough, and the bright almond-shaped eyes of the two elf boys staring back, wide with a terror that they had never known.

"I'm sure you knife-ears know a thing or two about justice, hm? Blood for blood, an eye for an eye, ear for knife-ear?" Gerald snarled the last bit, hefting one of his daggers as he stared down at the two elves. "Lucky for your clan, our brother was a bit small. The two of you put together oughta equal him, s'far as I'm concerned," he said, "it'll hurt real bad at first, but if it's any consolation, they say death just slides over you like a blanket when it finally comes. Doesn't that sound nice?"

Ynaevir leaned back against the bush, still hearing Ghedan struggling against the brambles on the opposite side. Breathing heavily, the moment the shemlen took a step forward, Ynaevir whirled in his spot and lunged under the bush along with Ghedan, shoving the older boy through the other side, hearing him yelp as thorns cut his skin.

"Run!" Ynaevir shrieked, wriggling after the older boy.

The shemlen expected their prey to run from them. Gerald, slighter and quicker, dodged around the bush to chase after Ghedan, who tore off back the direction that they had come. Thin boned and familiar with the territory, he made better progress than Gerald, and quickly out-distanced the human.

Ynaevir was not so lucky.

Still stuck in the bush, he felt a heavy hand shove in and grab onto his ankle, dragging him forcefully back out. The shemlen called Thomas loomed over him, as large and imposing as a grizzly bear, moving his hand to grab onto the little boy's throat, slowly tightening his grip and delighting to see the terror light up in Ynaevir's eyes.

"See… Gerald's all about the blood. Me? I like this…" he mused, his opposite hand rising to caress the side of Ynaevir's face. "You elves are always so small and light—easy to toss around. Trouble is, the whores in the slums are all used to that kinda thing. It's a real treat to get to break one in myself." He leered, continuing to choke Ynaevir.

The young elf boy's eyes widened as he sputtered, trying to breathe despite the heavy pressure cutting off his air. The things that Thomas said didn't make much sense to him. He was a child, and knew nothing about the carnal habits of adults, despite hearing Ghedan snicker about which aravel he had snooped on the previous night. Unlike the other boy, Ynaevir had never been so fixated on the future—he had preferred to enjoy the present, and the pretty breeze that touched his lips and tickled his lashes.

This, he decided, was not a moment that he wanted to live in. Ynaevir struggled against the shemlen, clawing at his wrists and whimpering loudly in fear, trying to see through the ever thickening clouds of black stars that sprinkled across his vision—lightly at first, and then so heavily.

Eventually, his world went black, and in his forced, fitful slumber, he was only dimly aware of what was going on. He could hear the crunching of twigs and leaves, muffled grunting, the feeling of being lifted and carried somewhere else, and then being promptly dumped onto the forest floor. None of this woke him up, however.

What woke Ynaevir was a raw, burning pain that was so severe that it quickly caused him to black out once again, dangling in that horrible place between wakefulness and sleep—knowing what was happening, but being unable to do anything about it. What he knew when the fight finally left him was that the backs of his thighs were wet and sticky, the air smelled like blood, shit, and sweat, and he hurt so terribly that he thought, perhaps, it might be best if he didn't wake up at all.


	5. Act 1, Chapter 4

**In Childhood's Hour**

Ynaevir

10

He woke to the sound of bitter, heated arguing.

It was useless to hope that the events of the previous night had been nothing but a terrible dream—the clan didn't argue, not like shemlen did. Dignified and restrained, his clan settled disagreements civilly and logically, not allowing their emotions to get the best of them. Shemlen, it seemed, didn't care to exercise the same restraint.

"If we're just gonna kill them and leave the bodies, what's it matter to Andraste's flaming tits what I do with him?!" Thomas demanded. His tone was both defensive and shamed, strained and pulled taut, like a bow ready to loose an arrow.

"Because it's a fucking child, Tom! That's not a whore in the slums, that's a child!"

"That we're going to kill!" Thomas returned.

The sound of the bickering grew distant and murky, as though everything was happening underneath water, and Ynaevir did his best to open his eyes, which he found were grotesquely swollen and blackened, much like the rest of his face, leaving him almost unrecognizable. If it hadn't been for the fact that the dull, throbbing pain of everything that had happened still plagued him, he might have muttered a prayer of thanks that he had slept through some of the beating, which Thomas had tried to use to rouse him and keep him awake, trapped in a state of petrified terror.

Ynaevir tried to stir, and the flare of pain that lit up in some awful place inside of him made him think otherwise. Stilling, the young boy tried to focus on his breathing instead of the awful fire all over him, inside and out, and for a time, that worked.

"You should have just cut his throat," Gerald snarled, holding his ground just as firmly as Thomas, occasionally stealing a glance at the crumpled form of the Dalish child, battered and broken, and missing the britches he had been wearing the previous night. It was early morning now, and when he had caught sight of the dried blood coating the boy's back end, he had started in on Thomas furiously, only to get even angrier when it seemed his brother saw nothing wrong with what he had done. Murder was one thing. Gerald understood murder—it was quick and clean.

This was something that he couldn't stand behind—especially given the subject of the abuse. Thomas might have been able to convince him if it had been just another elf whore in the slums, already with a malformed babe in her belly from the last time she had been bent over in the middle of the tavern.

"You do it," Thomas insisted, tossing a knife down on the ground at Gerald's feet. He was steaming from the flurry of accusations and harsh words levied against him—all over some knife-eared brat. It wasn't the first time for Thomas; it was just the first time that he had been caught before he could clean up the mess. He would have to be more careful in the future.

Gerald scowled, haggard, bearded face twisting into an ugly, venomous expression, but he swallowed down his rage and stooped to pick up the knife. Letting the boy live any longer was just cruel. The other boy had escaped him, running through the forest as quickly as a gust of wind might have, and at one point managing to slash the back of his hand open when Gerald had drawn close enough to make a grasp at him. The little shits were fast. He had trumped back towards where they had made camp in front of a small cave not far from the water, nursing his gashed hand and grumbling about knife-ears. In the dead of night, he hadn't paid any mind to the curled up heap of the other elf boy lying in front of the cave, and had simply assumed that Thomas had beaten him to death. Gerald wished that he had.

Grasping the knife in his sweating palm, Gerald turned towards the barely conscious boy and the dark mouth of the cave, heaving a frustrated sigh as he slowly stepped forward, growing far more irritated when he felt Thomas slithering along behind him like a yellow-bellied snake to see the final moments of his unfortunate victim.

Ynaevir tried to pry his eyes open, split, swollen lips trying uselessly to form words of any kind. His mouth was dry and tasted like iron, and everything hurt so badly. With one eye barely cracked open enough to see, he tried to focus on the two men drawing closer to him. Fear tugged at the pit of his belly, and the Dalish child writhed, panting raggedly, pulse thrumming in his severely bruised neck.

He didn't want to die. It wasn't fair that he had to die, especially like this.

The wrinkles in Gerald's face grew even deeper and more pitted as he stared down at the squirming, muttering boy, knife in hand. It was humane to kill quickly. Cutting the throat from ear to ear was quick. Shoving a blade between the ribs was quick. If he had just known earlier what had happened, he could have ended everything so much sooner…

A deep growl that seemed to come from the belly of the abyss itself interrupted his thoughts, and at the terrifying sound, both men lost control of their bladders, piss soaking their trousers as the color drained from their faces, leaving them clammy, stuttered wrecks, standing there uselessly and staring at the dark mouth of the cave with open mouths. From inside, a shadow darker than the rest stirred, drawing closer, seeming to feed off of the darkness, growing blacker than blackness.

One paw and then the next stepped into the light, the massive wolf barring its fangs at the two shemlen, ears trained on them, listening to the terrified shrieks of their souls. They were not worthy. Too terrified to move, the grown men stood as still as petrified cattle as the impossibly large wolf stepped easily over the broken body of the elf boy, circling the two men and fixing them with a stare that fed off of their fear.

Ynaevir was dimly aware of the feeling of fur brushing over his bare flesh, but instead of hearing the deep growls from the belly of this beast, his ears heard soothing hums and gentle chuffs. At first, he thought that the white she-wolf had returned, and that perhaps she was objecting to shemlen coming after a youth of any kind. He had heard stories of mother bears and wolves taking a liking to lost children, sometimes even baby halla that had gotten loose. When he managed to crack an eye open again, his vision was obscured by a pelt of fur that held every color imaginable and none all at once.

He kept the creature in his sights, finding comfort in the swirling colors and lack thereof, the presence of everything and nothing. Warmth radiated off of the creature, washing over him and keeping him from shivering in the cool morning air, despite the blood loss he had suffered. This was a creature that he could trust. Relief washed over him, and Ynaevir forced his eyes to stay open long enough to see the wolf knock the two men down with one gargantuan paw, its maw—perhaps larger than Ynaevir's torso at eight years of age—closing easily around their necks and severing their heads from their bodies, splashing the elf boy accidentally with a tidal wave of their blood.

The heads rolled some distance away, mouths still agape in silent screams.

Though they were quite dead, the massive wolf remained stooped over the bodies, tearing at their abdomens and chests with his teeth, desecrating the bodies and flinging their innards across the clearing, seeming to take great amounts of pleasure in decorating the forest floor with a scene of gore. Only when the entire clearing was covered in blood and entrails did the wolf seem satisfied, and it was then that his attention turned to the elf boy, still curled up, naked, on the floor.

Ynaevir finally managed to find the huge eye of the wolf, and he stared into it, seeing everything and nothing reflected back to him. It was the nothingness that frightened him, the deadly knowledge that this creature must have held somewhere deep inside. The Hahren had taught him the word for 'eyes' not long ago—Inan. He had explained to Ynaevir that it meant more than his eyes; it meant the place inside of him, the dwelling place of his soul. He had not understood how a pair of eyes could hold so much, not until he looked into this brute's gaze and held it for long moments.

_Aneth ara, Da'len_

The child stirred restlessly, confusion making him uneasy. There was no one else that could be speaking to him, and in truth, he did not think that he actually heard the words, so much as felt them against his skin, a gentle sweet-smelling breath that felt fresh and clean against his wounds.

The wolf opened his mouth and grasped the body of the child, very mindful to avoid hurting him with fangs that were larger than the boy's hands. Slowly, with a sense of leisure known only to those immortal, the dark wolf plodded away from the clearing and into the depths of the shallow cave, setting the boy on a bed a moss and curling up behind him, all-seeing eyes staring down at the injured form. It would be two days before the boy was found. He knew this because he had seen every possible way this could have played out—all paths that could have been chosen.

_Emma Bellanaris. Hamin, Ma Da'len, Ar'tu then na uth'u shiral mahvir.1_

Ynaevir could not understand many of the words as he felt them tickle his eyelashes and seep into his skin, but he knew that this creature had saved him, and he felt comfortable placing his trust in the massive wolf that had settled around him, keeping him warm with a thick, impossibly soft coat of fur. It made sense to listen to him, and as he lay on the very precipice of consciousness and slumber, staring up at those void-filled eyes that regarded him with paternal care, Ynaevir was dimly aware of other voices, some beautiful and some terrible, and all of them, every one of them, crying out.

_Fen'Harel, what have you done?_

Gheyna had run back to the camp as fast as she could have, but with the sense of dread that gnawed away at her heart and the fear of being alone that made her palms sweat, it was slow going, and she found herself standing back in the same place that she had started several times over. A two-mile trip that had taken the three children twelve minutes to complete, sprinting through the forests like halla that had just found their legs, wound up taking Gheyna two and a half hours to make on her own.

By the time she reached the Dalish camp, she was wet from having tripped into the stream, and several obscure bruises and scrapes were across her bare arms and legs. This did not concern any of the clansmen—it was far from unusual for children to come back scraped up from their playful antics not far outside of the camp.

What disturbed them were her tears, both the fresh ones that gathered in her eyes, and the dried tracks that had stained her cheeks from the first time she had cried while still out on her own.

Heads turned rapidly towards the girl as she slowed her pace, seeming to grow quite shy and fearful of reprimand now that she was back in camp. Half-crafted arrows were dropped on the ground, new salves that weren't quite worked into the perfect paste were abandoned, and two elves working to repair the roof of an aravel promptly hopped off of the landship and joined the others in their brisk march over to the girl, all of their eyes glinting in the darkness as hunters grasped their bows, staring off in the direction that Gheyna had come running from, half expecting something foul to round the bend after her.

Danyla was among the first of the clan to respond to Gheyna's return, pushing her mate away from her to get to the little girl faster. Athras and Danyla had never had any children of their own, but as the Dalish raised their children communally with no one child belonging strictly to a single elf or pair of mates, they were never left wanting. When her own child had been a still-born, and Ynaevir's mother died during the birthing process, she, among other mothers that still had milk in their breasts, offered to nurse him and care for him. She had watched Ynaevir and Gheyna grow and play together fondly, and seeing the little girl in such a state of distress unsettled her deeply.

"Sorry, it's the wolf, there was a wolf, and Ghedan and Ynaevir ran after it, and then I was supposed to come here, but they're out there, and—" Gheyna panted heavily, like a dog that had sprinted twenty nights straight and could never find air enough to live again.

"What kind of wolf, Gheyna?" one of the hunters asked her.

A lone wolf could be frightened off by two loud boys if they were not very close to the den, the hunters knew that well enough, as did the others of the clan. There were other types of wolves in the woods, however. Though they were rare, there had been the occasional sightings of wolves that stood five times the size of men, walking upright as men do, rabidly hunting down and slaughtering any living thing that they came across.

"A she-wolf, she was white, or grey, I don't know," Gheyna struggled, trying her hardest to remember. Everything had gotten scrambled inside of her head on the run back to the camp, and she doubted that she could even tell them which direction to go searching in.

"Ynaevir and Ghedan are still out there?" Danyla prompted Gheyna, clenching her jaw when the girl sniffed and nodded, edging closer and hugging the legs of a Hahren that she was particularly fond of. The old woman crooned to her and pet her fiery red hair, trying to soothe her.

No one had noticed Zathrian's approach, and when he spoke, many of the hunters twitched in place, startled by the sudden sound of his voice.

"Danyla, Tiv'e, Jithun—you three search north of the stream. Hahren Vita, take Gheyna to your aravel and ensure she gets some rest… she's had quite the ordeal, it seems." The Keeper ordered, ancient eyes staring out into the forests, the familiar seething rage he had felt before when his own children had been lost in the woods coming upon him again. There had been years without incident, all thanks to the careful planning and meticulous choices he maintained as to who lived and who died. Returning the pregnant shemlen to her village had been the right thing to do, though it had burned him to see her have the chance to raise her children and remain happy when he had never received the same opportunity, and the sight of two Dalish hunters returning the grateful woman to her family had done much to help boost their reputations.

Killing bandits and leaving their bodies at the entrance to the forests had been enough to keep most at bay. Not any longer, it seemed.

The Keeper nodded to Danyla and the other two hunters as he turned to walk with Hahren Vita and Gheyna, listening to the frightened little girl do her best to recount the tale as far as she knew it. It had been several hours since she had last seen the two boys, and morning was beginning to threaten the horizon. The hunters of his clan were skilled, and from the sounds of it, the two boys had done nothing to cover their tracks. He had no doubt that they would find the boys and whatever threat remained before the sun truly warmed the air.

In that, he was only partially correct.

They found Ghedan quickly, clinging to the uppermost portions of a tree-trunk like a baby bear, staring down and sniffing loudly. What he said sent the Dalish into a frenzy of rage and panic.

Two shemlen in the woods, and they had attacked the two boys. No, he didn't know where Ynaevir was, or if he was even alive.

The hunters went through the forests with a ferocity known only to parents who have lost their beloved child, furiously overturning hollow logs and shouting the boy's name in hopes that he would either come out of hiding, or that whoever had killed him would show themselves so that the clan could exact their vengeance on them, and hang them by their innards a hundred paces outside of the woods.

The sun rose, it warmed the forest, and still they had not found him.

The second day, just as Fen'Harel had seen it, Danyla came upon a clearing that reaked of gore and carrion, filling her with the fear that The Dread Wolf fed off of. Shoving her way past the bramble-bush the boys had struggled with that fateful night, she thundered into the clearing, almond-eyes wide at the sight of crows feasting on ropes of gore, each turning to regard her with disdain for interrupting their feast, refusing to hop up into the trees, but waiting patiently for her to leave them to it.

Stooping down and becoming sick, it took Danyla several minutes before she could look up again, the realization dawning on her that the bodies the crows were feasting on did not belong to a small elven boy, but to two grown men.

With her hope and her fear hand-in-hand, Danyla called out to him.

And he answered.

1 I am Eternity. Rest, My Child. I will wake you for your long, lonely journey tomorrow.


	6. Act 1, Chapter 5

**In Childhood's Hour**

Ynaevir

9

"Ynaevir, Ma Da'len, come to me!" Danyla's voice echoed as the walls of the dark cave swallowed them up, sending them straight back to Ynaevir's long, pointed ears as he woke from the longest fitful slumber he had ever taken. Sitting up, he looked to the monster of a wolf that was still curled around him, still staring down at him. Something passed between the two of them, and the boy rose stiffly to his feet, still feeling the pain of his injuries, but no longer feeling overcome by it.

Gently, he brought his hands up to hold both sides of The Dread Wolf's muzzle, and the young boy tipped his own head up to kiss The Trickster's chin, solidifying the bond between himself and Fen'Harel without knowing it.

With a last look at the wolf whose pelt held every color and none, Ynaevir turned and walked from the mouth of the cave, seeming entirely disinterested in the scene of gore that surrounded him and welcomed him back into the world, as naked and bloodied as the day of his birth. Eventually, he looked up at Danyla, staring at her levelly, offering the woman that had suckled him a slow blink, and a very stiff, formal bow.

"Ma serannas, Mamma. Thank you for finding me," Ynaevir said.

Danyla did not wait any longer. Uncaring of the mess that littered the entirety of the clearings floor, she stumbled forward and sank down to her knees in front of the boy, flinging her arms around him and burying her face in his lean, bruised chest. She sobbed long and hard, her fingers digging into his skin and creating fresh bruises on the boy's already purpled and blackened skin. She did not care where he had come from or how he had survived, and in her relief, she did not even think to ask such questions, or how the men had come to be torn to shreds and left as food for the crows.

When she tried to scoop the boy up into her arms, she felt Ynaevir struggle and looked up to see him shaking his head resolutely. At the very least, he allowed her to hold his hand, and the two of them began the slow walk back to the camp. It was all Danyla could do to keep from dragging him behind her in a mad dash with the joyous relief that filled her heart.

"I can walk, it is alright." Ynaevir said, doing his best not to glance over his shoulder and back into the comfortable den that had offered him safe harbor for those two long nights, searching for the terrible gaze of the wolf that had come to his rescue when none other had. Keeping a hold on Danyla's hand, mostly for her benefit, the boy and the huntress continued on their trek, and while she didn't ask him any questions, Ynaevir knew that they would not be long in coming.

Several miles outside of camp in the opposite direction, the halla tender finally caught up with the baby halla that had escaped two nights ago. The tracks were deep and fresh, and she had heard bleating not long before. He could not be farther than just around the next bend in the grove.

Stepping around the tree with her staff in hand, the halla tender stopped short at the sight in front of her.

On the ground, the baby halla lay very still, most of its white pelt stained red with blood. Above the corpse, a white she-wolf with brambles stuck wrapped around her legs stood still, watching the Tender with a commanding stare.

Prepared to fight off the wolf to retrieve the body, the tender raised her staff, but to her astonishment, the wolf licked her chops and, without so much as a growl, turned and trotted off lazily deeper into the woods, her tail streaming behind her all the way. Shaken and disturbed, the Dalish stooped to pick up the body of the halla, laboriously hoisting the thin frame of the gangly creature over her shoulders, starting on her sorrowful and lonely walk back to the camp, the remnants of innocence hanging limply, its tongue lolling out over her shoulder.

When they returned to camp, Ynaevir felt his strength failing him. Doubts began to pester him, and the boy started to shiver almost violently, the effects of blood loss returning. Too weak to protest, Ynaevir said nothing when Danyla picked him up in her arms and cradled him against her breast, picking up the pace to an uneven trot to get them to the camp faster.

The hunters that had still be searching joined her along the way, all of them shouting out questions that she didn't know the answers to. Zathrian waited in front of his aravel, along with Hahren Vita. Wasting no time, Danyla carried Ynaevir's body straight to The Keeper, dipping her head to her leader. In her haste, she did not see the keeper of the halla returning with the body of the baby halla, and for the ringing in her ears, she did not hear the mother halla's mournful sobbing at the loss of her sweet natured child.

All she heard was the awful ringing, and all she could see was Zathrian reaching out to help her with Ynaevir's limp body.

The two of them managed to get the boy into Zathrian's aravel and settled onto The Keeper's bedding, laid out so that Hahren Vita and Zathrian would have an easier time examining him and tending to his wounds. Once the boy was settled, The Keeper turned his eyes to Danyla, eying her with a sorrowful understanding for a moment. His gaze hardened, then, and The Keeper nodded once to her.

"Leave us, Da'len, we will tend to the boy and treat his wounds." His voice was firm and commanding, leaving no room for argument. In his heart, he knew it would have eased Danyla to see them as they worked, and to witness the care administered to the boy she favored, but logic dictated that she would get in the way. He knew that much was true. When his daughter had been found, he had been more of a bother than a help in trying to treat her. Reluctantly, Danyla left them, but not before placing a tender kiss on the boy's sweat-slick forehead.

When Hahren Vita and The Keeper were able to return to their work, the extent and type of the injuries that they found only served to fuel Zathrian's rage even further.

As though in response, in a far distant part of the forests, the savage howls of the Walking Wolves sounded out as yet another fell victim to the curse.

When he awoke, Ynaevir was different.

Throughout his fitful slumber, the boy muttered and mumbled, one doubt after another entering his mind and plaguing him. He heard voices that were not his own and not those of the clan speaking to him, and he saw fingers pointing at familiar things, all of them accusing and cruel, spitting out that these things, these people, had led him to his fate, and because of them, he would never again feel calmed by a fresh spring breeze, and he would never find joy in the affectionate nuzzles of the halla.

His simple, pleasant life was nothing but ash, and the voices muttered constantly in his mind, trying to sway his thoughts and feelings.

It took him half of the week to be able to sit up properly, and much of The Keeper's healing magic before he could rise to his feet and step out of the aravel. The clan were full of curiosity and wonder, all of them taking an interest in the same boy that they had overlooked entirely for most of his life. Zathrian warned them away with stern glares, only permitting Danyla to come to the boy and embrace him again.

To her, it seemed nothing drastic had changed, and for that, she was grateful. He still avoided making eye contact with people, he tolerated her touch for the moment, and because of his fondness for the woman who had nursed him, he briefly returned the embrace, and afterwards, he stepped back.

"I'm hungry. Where is Gheyna?" he asked, staring up at the space above Danyla's shoulder.

_She could have watched over you. She could have been there. She could have stopped them. She _should _have stopped them._

The corner of the boy's mouth twitched, and he averted his gaze from his mother, fidgeting restlessly and scanning the campsite, narrow, lean chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to silence the sickly thoughts that skittered around inside of his mind like little spiders, each threatening to bite and poison him again and again.

"Athras is making a soup using your favorite roots—Gheyna is with Hahren Vita; she's been trying to finish making a necklace for you before you awoke," Danyla murmured gently, hesitantly reaching out to touch the boy, who suddenly flinched at her incoming hand. Without another word to her, Ynaevir slowly walked over towards the aravel that Hahren Vita kept her belongings inside of. Not bothering to listen to Zathrian or Danyla as they murmured to each other as he left.

"I don't understand, Zathrian, why does he not let me touch him?" Danyla barely managed to put a breath behind the words, her tone far too heavy with hurt and grief for her to sort through. Zathrian reached out and embraced the huntress—a gesture that was exceedingly rare from the stern, stoic, stalwart leader she had lived under since she was a young girl.

"He has been through much, Danyla, give him time," Zathrian advised her, holding her head to his chest as a father might have held a daughter, "The last hands that touched him were cruel and wicked—it will take time before he remembers kindness and love." The Keeper's voice was burdened with such a somber knowledge that it unsettled Danyla more than it comforted her, but in the end, she relented, resolving to give Ynaevir his space and not try to force him back to the life he had held before.

Across the clearing that the camp had taken up residence in, Ynaevir came upon Hahren Vita's aravel, bright green eyes scanning it quickly before he tapped at one of the beams that sloped down and rested on the ground with his foot.

Hearing this, Gheyna brightened up from her anxious, somber mood, straightening and then letting out a shrill, excited scream, leaping to her feet and wrenching herself free of the Hahren's coddling embrace so that she could rush headlong into Ynaevir, disregarding the fact that he was still covered in bruises, and very nearly bowling the both of them over as she flung her arms around him.

"You're awake! Hahren Vita has been saying that you would wake up soon, and she told me that all of my prayers to Mythal must have helped. I'm not good at praying, Ynaevir, but I'm glad that I did it!" Gheyna babbled touching him all over and cramming herself up against him as though they were about to nap. Unlike Danyla, she didn't expect very much from Ynaevir. He rarely returned any of her touches prior to the incident, and she saw no reason why it should be any different now. Sure enough, Ynaevir stood still and tolerated her, the barest of smiles on his face as his eyes found a rock placed around the fire pit to stare at intently while Gheyna told him about everything that he had missed while he had slept for days.

Ju'sina had her baby, finally, and apparently Athras's cousin, Nitres, was the father. They were preparing to move the camp farther east, one of the baby halla had been killed by a wolf, and she and Varathorn had rescued a baby bird that had fallen from the next, and she was going to raise it as her own.

Ynaevir nodded slowly as she spoke, feeling somewhat saddened at the thought of the baby halla, but the news of the bird that Gheyna had cooped up in a crate lined with hay and bits of fur turned his moods around, and breaking his silence, Ynaevir touched her elbow with his fingertips to silence her updates long enough for him to speak.

"Where is the bird? I want to see it," he told her, smiling faintly.

Excited that she was not the only child interested in her rare find, Gheyna grabbed up the necklace from the ground where she had dropped it and then waved Ynaevir over to follow her. Behind Varathorn's aravel, the crate that held the baby bird was stowed away underneath and covered with a leather blanket to try to keep potential scavengers from daring the camp to snatch up the chick. Stooping down, Gheyna dragged out the crate, giggling as she heard the immediate loud peeping of the wad of fluffy feathers underneath the blanket. Taking it off, she pointed down at the bird.

"I was gonna name it Naevi. I can't give it your whole name because I'm pretty sure that it's a girl, but she's very sweet, and you are, too." Gheyna told him, nodding her head and looking down into the crate. Naevi stared back up at the two children with eyes that held absolutely no comprehension as to what was going on, but figuring that this was a similar scene to her mother looking down at her inside of the nest, Naevi stretched up her neck and opened her beak wide, determined to get fed.

"Can I touch her?" Ynaevir's voice was hopeful, and he leaned forward, placing a hand on the edge of the crate.

He felt Gheyna shift beside him, and the tall boy stole a look at her, seeing her looking uncomfortable and conflicted over this. The tips of his ears drooped, and he looked away, knowing before she replied what her answer was going to be.

"Varathorn says I shouldn't touch her unless I really have to, I'm sorry Ynaevir…" Gheyna mumbled, her lower lip starting to stick out as she reached into the crate to pick up a tiny pouch of grains that they had wetted and mashed into a paste. Taking a pinch, she gently pushed the mashed goop into the bird's open beak, watching with rapt attention as the chick struggled to swallow the thick wad, but ultimately seemed satisfied with his meal, settling down and peeping very quietly.

"I wish they hadn't touched me," Ynaevir murmured.

The suddenness and the sorrow behind his statement caught Gheyna off guard, and she struggled to figure out what to say in response. She had never experienced sorrow or grief on her own, and she didn't know how to handle the intensity and weight of his statement. Instead of trying, Gheyna held out a simple necklace to Ynaevir, a brown leather thong with the large front tooth of the baby halla dangling from the center.

"I tried for a really long time to get one of the shells to fit on it, but all of them kept shattering until I didn't have any more left," the red-haired elf confessed, looking disappointed and sad all at once, "When Lucina brought back the halla from the wolf, I remembered how much you always liked to watch him and visit him, so I asked if I could have a tooth before they buried him."

Ynaevir looked at the necklace for a long time before he took it, slowly tying it around his neck, tilting his head down at an uncomfortable angle to try and get a good look at where the bleached, remarkably clean tooth dangled on his bare chest, a stark white against what darkened hues remained of the terrible bruising.

"We all really love you, you know that, right Ynaevir?"

_She's lying. She is a liar._

"Yes, I know."


	7. Act 1, Epilogue

Epilogue – Act 1, Childhood's Hour

What Fen'Harel had not intended were the unnatural effects his brief presence with the boy had on his psyche. He had never meant to break the bridge between the mortal realm and that of the Beyond, leaving cracks through which demons and other lesser tricksters stuck their fingers through. He watched with concern as the boy grew, waiting to see if he would be able to withstand the constant vying for his attention from unpleasant beings that, despite being a god himself, Fen'Harel had no power to command or keep at bay.

He had tried, at first, for the boy's sake. When he snapped the fingers off of one creature, two more sets replaced it, reaching longer and with more vigor than the ones before it. Before he had realized it, Fen'Harel had made the problem even worse than before.

For years, the boy that had not been meant to survive withstood the words that invaded his thoughts with grace and dignity that would make any Dalish proud, had they only known the constant turmoil that Ynaevir withstood, and how arduous it was becoming for him. It was long enough for Fen'Harel to consider turning his attention elsewhere for a while, trying to slow the progress of the Darkspawn any way that he could—causing cave-ins that smashed many of them, opening paths for The Legion of the Death to progress further, and assisting the dwarves in their constant war against the darkspawn, all from the shadows, all unseen.

The screams of the boy caught his attention, several years after he had saved him and restored him to his clan, but they were not the screams of someone in danger. These shouts were murderous and strained, pushed to the brink of insanity, and then just past the threshold, kept teetering on the very precipice, so close to slipping that Fen'Harel dare not interfere more than he already had, for fear of sending his champion into oblivion.

The problem, as he saw it, watching blood soak the hands of the boy, was that mortals were never meant to look into the eyes of the gods.


	8. Act 2, Prologue

Prologue – Act 2, The End of Innocence

At the beginning of every morning, before the sun had managed to break free from the horizon, Ynaevir walked out of the small door of Danyla and Athras's aravel, his eyes downcast. His bare feet made no sound as he walked from one end of the camp to the other, past the other aravels and various tents that had been set up. He ignored the gentle snoring and the occasional sound of a mated couple getting in their love making before chores, and the gentle sighs of the newest young mother putting her babe back in its cradle after a spontaneous nursing.

Eyes that had once held a hint of wonder now held nothing but a painful knowledge that Ynaevir could not explain. His mind, quiet and serene all the years of his life, had been damaged irreparably. The voices wouldn't stop. All day, they spoke to him. Over the last four difficult years, the dark-haired boy had managed to tune them out for the most part, and their volume decreased to the sound of a swift-moving stream. The treacherous words were constant and ever-present, but no longer overwhelming at every moment.

Bringing one hand up, Ynaevir clutched the halla tooth tied to the leather thong around his neck, his eyes staring out at the great white deer as he came upon the round pen that they willingly slept and spent most of their time in, munching lazily on twigs and berries, and the occasional sweet leaf.

Catching sight of him, the halla did something that was most unnatural when in the presence of one of the Elvhenn.

Their heads turned towards him, first one, and then several more, and with a startling quickness for it being so early in the morning, they each rose to their hooves, stumbling over each other in a hurry to get away from the side of the pen that Ynaevir stood outside of. They backed themselves up against the opposite gate, uncomfortably scrunched together. None of them made any noise. Ears turned towards the barely pubescent elf boy, tendrils of steam rose from their nostrils. They shivered.

The air, while laden with a light mist that coated the earth with a sprinkling of dew, was not at all cold.

Tilting his head, Ynaevir turned the halla tooth over in his hand. He felt all of the curves, the indentations of the bone, the very tip of the tooth that scraped leaves from branches and plucked grass with ease. All the years of his childhood, the halla had regarded him fondly, allowing him to walk among them and pet each one of them, checking their split hooves for anything that might have gotten caught. Now, he could not come near them.

The corner of his mouth twitched downwards, and the boy slowly turned away, and walked back the way he had come.


	9. Act 2, Chapter 1

Act 2, Chapter 1

At twelve years of age, Ynaevir was expected to start to assist in the gutting, cleaning, and skinning process of every kill that the hunters brought back. There was a distant worry that he might not do so, given his history in balking at the sight of dead animals, but much to the clan's astonishment, Ynaevir did something very strange.

He volunteered to help.

Knife in hand, Ynaevir crouched over the body of a forest lion that had been spotted and killed by one of the hunters before it could attack any of the younger children that had been playing in the stream. A blonde boy, Cammon, had blubbered and sobbed in fear regardless of the lack of danger. Over his shoulder, Varathorn pointed at the correct place to cut into the pelt and skin, and Ynaevir copied the technique as best as he knew how, bright green eyes focused on the task at hand.

The last four years had seen great change in his life, though most of the clan, aside from those closest to him, remained totally in the dark about the new oddities.

Danyla stood back a little bit, the skin around her eyes tightening at the sight. It felt wrong to see him like this. It was right and proper for every Dalish child to eventually grow to this point, and to begin assisting and preparing themselves for the tasks of adulthood, but Ynaevir had been so gentle before. A knife in his grasp and blood on his hands was wrong. She shifted uncomfortably.

Ynaevir gave off a light hiss of effort as he forced the knife through the toughest portion, and, mimicking what he had seen done on previous kills, he shoved his hands into the belly of the giant feline, scooping out whatever innards and organs were in his way to get to the ribs. Along the way, he paused, eyes drifting up and looking out to some far off place.

The forest lion had been pregnant, and he could feel one of the unborn babies in his hand.

It squirmed once in his grasp, a feeble twitch.

His lack of movement held the rest of the clan enthralled and suspended, indecisive as to what to do, or why he wasn't continuing. Some reasoned that it was the familiar lack of constitution returning to him, and that any moment, the dark-haired boy was going to turn his head and vomit into the dirt. Others had seen the look on his face before, an odd mix of knowledge and sadness. He wore it every time he looked out at the halla when he believed that no one was watching him.

"Ynaevir?" It was Gheyna that spoke, her arms held up in front of her chest to guard tender breasts that were just starting to bud out, and to prevent any elbows from accidentally finding them.

"She's pregnant." The boy stated in response, his hand still holding the cub from the other side of the uterus. Again, it moved. It was smaller than it should have been, and logic dictated that it wasn't going to survive outside of the womb, but if left inside of its fleshy prison, there was no chance at all.

The clan members shifted uncomfortably, none of them quite sure what they were supposed to do. On the one hand, it was a dangerous predator that had threatened to attack the children of the clan. On the other hand, Ynaevir had his hand on a cub. A cub that, thus far, knew nothing of bloodshed.

Not finding any of the answers his sought from their silence, Ynaevir let out a slow breath, looking down at the gutted feline once more as he shifted his weight and pushed his other hand inside of her belly, cutting the uterus open with a gentle flick of the knife, and then being very careful not to harm the cubs that were inside. He pulled out three of them. Two were already dead. The third squirmed weakly, some small pittance of life still left in it. The runt of the litter, it likely wouldn't have survived its first winter out in the wilds, even if it had been given its full time within the womb.

Cutting the cord with his teeth, Ynaevir picked up the cub with a complete lack of shyness at the blood covered infant, bringing it up to his mouth and closing his lips around its muzzle, sucking to get the fluid out of its nostrils and mouth. Once he had managed that, he spat the embryonic fluid onto the ground next to the dead cubs, and he looked at the baby that squealed and mewled pathetically, eyes still tightly shut, as they would be, for several more weeks.

"I'm sorry, Varathorn, I have to take care of the cub. Ma serannas, thank you for giving me the opportunity," Ynaevir murmured, rising to his feet and dipping his head to the craftsmen, managing to find a path free from the rest of the clan and the corpse, the furry, bloody baby still in his grasp.

Gheyna watched after her friend in confusion for several moments, not noticing as the disturbed members of the clan stooped down to finish what Ynaevir had started, gutting and skinning and looting the corpse for all that it was worth, distributing it amongst themselves based on who needed what and how much, eventually forgetting their discomfort over the entire situation. Still guarding her tiny breasts, Gheyna stepped back from the group, turning around and shuffling off towards the aravel that she had been sharing with Hahren Vita for several months now. Things had been different and strange for a very long time now, and while Hahren Vita and Danyla both assured her that it was just a difficult time for both herself and for Ghedan and Ynaevir, on the cusp of adulthood as they were, Gheyna wasn't so sure.

Ghedan, fourteen, had become even more of a headache, especially since he had managed to get a following of children a few years younger, and had even converted a couple of the older children. He was insufferable with his tales of how, barely ten, he had fought off a vicious shemlen. What angered her the most about his stories, which she had heard for years, was the part where he wistfully remarked on how, if Ynaevir had only been a little stronger, a little tougher—perhaps half as tough as Ghedan was, he might have fought off the shem, too.

None of them knowing for sure what had happened, the younger children had believed him wholeheartedly without even seeking a counter-story or explanation from Ynaevir, and this had only served to further isolate the dark-haired boy among the clan.

Though, as it turned out, he was doing a good job of that, himself.

She had seen him slinking off to the very edges of the camp, sitting down against the base of a tree and clapping his hands over his ears, or plugging their holes with his fingertips, his lips moving in some silent prayer. No one was bothering him or speaking to him, and she understood less and less the way he withdrew from everyone. Unfortunately for Ynaevir, Gheyna wasn't the only one to have noticed his increasingly strange habits. Zathrian had noticed, and he did not look favorably on the matter.

Danyla had noticed, too.

At night, the huntress lay awake with Athras's arms wrapped around her, his gentle snoring just behind her ears, and on the opposite side of the aravel, Ynaevir muttered fitfully to himself, speaking to strange things that were not there. At one point, it got so bad that she carefully extracted herself from Athras, crouching next to Ynaevir as he muttered and wept with his face against the floor.

"Ma Da'len," she had said, reaching out and grasping his shoulder, giving him a gentle shake, "Ynaevir, wake up, it is only a dream," she had tried to keep her tone soothing, but the straining nature of the situation had taken its toll. Waking up in a flurry, but not truly joining the waking world in his mind, the barely pubescent boy had lashed out at her, dragging her to the ground and clapping one hand over her throat and the other on top of her mouth, pinning her down and staring at her with eyes that looked straight through her.

All the while, the baby halla tooth tied around his neck had dangled in her face, some mocking gesture the gods sent to her.

Perhaps a part of her boy, the largest part, had been buried along with the halla, all those years ago.

Luckily, Athras had been able to hear her struggling, and he had come to his mate's aid, dragging Ynaevir off of him and slamming him against the wall of the aravel hard enough to bring him back to the world of the living. The eyes that stared back at the two hunters were wide and full of such a startled fear that they couldn't bear to do anything about what had happened, or voice any concern for the child that they had taken in to the Keeper.

Now, watching him walk away with the baby forest lion, Danyla felt the slightest twinges of hope that some small part of the sweet boy she had helped raise was still present, hiding inside of a thick shell. She smiled, ever so faintly.

Paying no heed to what went on behind him, Ynaevir continued walking off down the slope towards the halla pens. One of the females was lactating, and while halla milk may have been different than lion milk, it seemed more reasonable to Ynaevir to ask the halla tender to see about getting him a bowl of it to feed to the cub instead of searching out the newest young mother and pestering her for the milk that belonged to the Elvhenn babies.

Knowing better than to step close to the round pen, as the halla had taken to avoiding him over the years, Ynaevir stood at the edge of the lowered place where the master of the halla resided along with them, letting them graze freely in the semi-protected clearing.

"Vineda, are you there?" Ynaevir called out, trying to peer around the side of the aravel without startling the halla in their open pen, who were already starting to move towards the other side, regarding him with wary stares all the while.

"Ynaevir?" It came more as a curious statement than a question. Hearing her shuffling behind the aravel, the old woman hobbled out to greet him, using her staff to lean against, as the recent years required of her. Her eyes drifted down to the squirming cub in his hands, and the hint of a smile touched at her lips before she looked back up to him.

"The lioness they killed was pregnant." Ynaevir stated, his voice flat and his tone indecipherable.

Vineda nodded slowly, her lower lip giving the characteristic tremble that the eldest of beings often started to show. Turning her head just as slowly, she looked out at the female halla with udders that were still full, even though she had since started refusing to let her adolescent calf nurse from her. Understanding immediately what it was that Ynaevir needed from her, she nodded her head as she turned back to look at him, and then once again down at the squirming bundle in his hands.

"She's got some milk in her yet, and if I tempt her and let her know what it's for, she might let me keep her going a little while longer. I'll see what I can do for you, Da'len…" Vineda started, beginning to turn, but then glancing over her shoulder, "Da'len, I've not seen you in with the halla anymore as of late… is everything alright?"

The corner of Ynaevir's mouth gave a small twitch, and his eyes grew somewhat distant for several seconds, during which he began to idly pet the cub in his hands. With a relieved sigh at the soothing feeling the small life brought him, Ynaevir nodded his head, looking away from Vineda.

"Everything is fine," he lied, staring off towards Varathorn's aravel, and the crafts that he had set out, "I need to go now, Hahren. I need to find out how to get her to take the milk," Ynaevir excused himself, walking away from Vineda before the old woman could ask any more questions, or stare into him with eyes that were so ancient, he rationalized, that they must know something.

It had never been a hard decision to keep the voices that he heard to himself, and to never tell even Danyla or Gheyna about the thoughts that plagued him constantly, seeds of doubt that had grown into impossibly tall oaks, their roots sinking deep into his spirit. It was much easier to try and deal with the constant turmoil himself. Zathrian had asked him about his Black Moods twice before, mentioning the way Ynaevir separated himself from the others and stared off into nothing with malice and hatred, trying to plug his ears. He had asked him if he thought of hurting any of the clan.

In truth, Ynaevir never gave it much thought.

Those of the clan were the only beings that he knew, and most of them were at the very least a neutral presence in his life. Danyla, Athras, and Gheyna were the closest to him, and he had less trouble with the negative thoughts towards them. He did not want to think about hurting anyone, but once the voices began telling him of things that he should do, it was hard to get them to stop, and just as the mind can't help but see rain when someone mentions a drizzle for the crops, he couldn't help but picture what the ever present voices were muttering to him about.

Satisfied that, for the moment, he was no threat to the rest of them, Zathrian had left him alone after that, withdrawing as much as Ynaevir withdrew, in part because the boy reminded him far too much of his daughter after the tragedy that had struck her life. The only difference was that the boy didn't know well enough to end his own life.

Cradling the cub, Ynaevir was eventually stopped by the newest Dalish mother with a milk-soaked piece of cloth.

"The babe had his fill, this is what I can give until Vineda can help you," she explained, handing him the cloth and petting his head with a tenderness that she afforded to all children, now that her own maternal instincts were in full force.

Holding the cloth in his hand, Ynaevir frowned as he looked down at the cub, but eventually figured that if his pinky finger resembled the shape of a teat, the cub would know what to do on its own. Sitting down at the top of the slope that led down to the halla pens, Ynaevir tried to nurse the cub for the first time. The gentle sucking at his fingertip made him smile, and for the first time in years, the constant muttering in his head quieted to nothing more than a whisper; one that was so easy for him to drown out almost entirely.

"You're a little girl," Ynaevir remarked, pulling her tail out of the way to get a look at her privates. Danyla had told him the difference in a lesson on animals not long ago—females would have a smooth slope from their bum to their tummies, whereas males would have an extra bump between the two that would eventually grow into something quite noticeable.

"Da'gar, hm?" he continued to murmur, finding a very pleasant feeling in hearing only his own voice and the gentle sucking of the cub, "Little Spirit," the boy added, chewing on the inside of his lip. When the milk had been sucked clean from the cloth in one spot, he shifted his finger to the next, continuing to feed the cub that way until Hahren Vineda delivered to him a bowl of milk, advising him to keep it in the shade so that it wouldn't spoil quite as fast.

"Ma serannas," Ynaevir thanked her, his eyes flicking up to the space above her shoulder. Staring much longer than was usual for him, a gentle smile began to form at the corners of his mouth.

In that moment, holding his new little cub, Ynaevir felt nothing but peace.

It would not last.


	10. Act 2, Chapter 2

Act 2, Chapter 2

It had been four months since Ynaevir had managed to save the cub, and it had long since been weaned off of halla milk and put on a diet of pasted grains and spare meats and fish. The dark-haired elf hadn't had an episode since the cub had been in his care, and it seemed that the happy child from four years ago had returned to the clan. He remained aloof, but then, Ynaevir always had. Most of his time was spent at the stream with his cub, standing very still in the water with his britches rolled up to his thighs, one eye watching the forest lion cub, and the other watching the stream for the next fish to dart between his legs.

His proficiency at fishing had increased to an admirable level, and the clan was beginning to see that Ynaevir merely needed what he considered a worthy incentive to keep working hard. The clan continued on as they had before, moving from place to place within the brecilian forest, remaining in one spot at their leisure, unlike the other dalish clans that had to camp in forests close to human settlements. Very few humans dared to enter the forests for very long, what with rumors of wolves that stood upright and walked as men did, viciously assaulting any living thing that came across their path. The clan, as luck would have it, had been able to avoid all but a few of the monsters, and those they shot down before they were able to land blows against the dalish.

Today, Hahren Vita had a lesson for Ynaevir, she would talk to him about the changes in his body and ask him of any thoughts he had had lately. His most recent growth spurt had Ynaevir only slightly shorter than most of the adult Elvhenn men, and it was assumed that he was going to reach puberty slightly early in comparison to the other boys. Gheyna had already started down that path. When she had been bleeding from the place between her legs, she had come first to Ynaevir, and like any worried friend would, he took her to his mother.

With lightning quick reflexes, Ynaevir thrust his hand into the water, grabbing hold of the wriggling fish with a tight grip, jerking it out of the water and holding it against his chest, somehow managing to avoid getting smacked in the face by the lashing tail. With a grunt, Ynaevir took his da'mi and stabbed it into the head of the fish, trying to stop it from struggling a little faster. He doubted that Da'gar was strong enough to kill a fish by herself. She enjoyed pouncing on the bodies, though.

Wading out of the stream, which had deepened with the spring months, Ynaevir joined the squalling cub on the banks with the bloody fish in his grasp. The cub pawed at his shins, butting her forehead against his ankles and then flipping over to gnaw on the side of his foot with her sharp baby teeth.

Wrinkling his nose at the unpleasant sensation, but treating her as patiently as one treats an infant, he crouched down and grabbed onto her scruff, making her go limp.

"Your teeth are sharp, Da'gar, they hurt," he told her, hoping that some part of her would understand, at least. It was debatable.

Releasing her once he had moved her several inches away from the sensitive insoles of his feet, Ynaevir dropped the mutilated fish onto the damp banks, watching it intently to ensure that it wasn't going to flop right back into the river before Da'gar had worked up the nerve to wrestle with the corpse. As luck would have it, it was indeed a corpse.

The forest lion cub tilted her head at this familiar treat, lowering her front to the ground and wiggling her rump in the air, long tail twitching and lashing behind her with interest. Taking several moments to size up her prey, the cub eventually launched forward into a clumsy pounce, tripping over her own paws and at least managing to fall onto the fish by some saving grace. Satisfied enough with her skills as a hunter, she turned her head up to Ynaevir and seemed to smile at him. With a gentle pat as a reward, she dug her claws into the scaly fish and bit at it several times.

Ynaevir sat back on his rump, bright green eyes drifting out farther into the forests. It often took Da'gar up to half an hour to figure out the best way to eat her food, and it was time enough for the boy's mind to drift to far off places. For the most part, he thought of simple things, like how deep earthworms dig, but sometimes, if he had been at the verge of one of his infamous Black Moods for quite some time, he thought back to the events that he didn't quite remember.

There was a face that made him stiffen when it entered his mind's eye, though all he could ever see of it was a bearded jaw and a sickly sweet smile. There was the smell of blood and gore, of acrid urine, and in the middle of all of the terrible things—such a wonderful warmth. He had looked somewhere, but try as he might, the fragments of sanity that the boy still retained refused to allow him to remember anything at all about those soulless eyes that held every moment between the beginning of time and the bitter end.

Most days, while Da'gar ate her fish, Ynaevir tried to remember what he had seen, and where he had been. The clan had asked him, once the terror of the ordeal had worn off, and he had not been able to say. In the end, he didn't even remember walking back with Danyla—the only thing that he could tell them was that he had been running after Ghedan, and then there were men.

The older clan members who were experienced enough to know what had happened gave thanks to their creators. Zathrian, it seemed, was the only one who remained unconvinced.

"Ynaevir!" Gheyna's voice startled him from the roadblock in his mind, and Ynaevir blinked several times, looking up in her direction and smiling, "Hahren Vita sent me, she's ready to talk to you now," Gheyna informed him, stepping down the slope to the stream, stooping to pat Da'gar on the rump and to help Ynaevir stand up.

"Can I carry her back?" She said.

Ynaevir nodded his head, even more at ease than before, though he hadn't thought such a thing possible. Grabbing Da'gar by her scruff, he hoisted her up and dropped her down into Gheyna's arms, and the red-haired girl immediately began to coo and gush over the feline, rubbing her forehead against the not-yet big cat's and touching their noses together. More concerned with what was practical; Ynaevir pinched what was left of the tail fin between his fingers.

"She likes to play with these, I take it away once it gets a little too smelly," Ynaevir informed his volunteer cub-sitter, stuffing the fin between Gheyna's fingers and snickering as the cub immediately started pawing at it.

"Do you think that you would ever be able to take her hunting with you when she's older?" Gheyna asked him as they started back up the slope. The thought gave Ynaevir pause, and the dark-haired elf shrugged his shoulders, lips pressing together into a lopsided line. He had never thought of it. Da'gar could eventually learn the necessary skills on her own, he assumed, but he wasn't altogether sure exactly how far instincts would take her. Most cubs had their mothers to teach them. What was left of Da'gar's mother had been used to line the finely crafted crib that got passed around between young mothers when needed.

"You could probably be a very skilled pair, if you could train her to work with you," Gheyna went on, her eyes alternating between focusing on where she was going and the cub that finally seemed to be settling down and realizing that no matter how much she squirmed, Gheyna was still going to be carrying her all the way back to camp. Ynaevir acted as guide for the most part, steering them silently around tree trunks and steeper slopes, nudging Gheyna around the thorny bramble patches whenever she was distracted.

Maybe he could train the cub. He had never heard of it, but he remembered hearing a story of an elf that could speak with sparrows and other types of birds, and they had helped him find his way home as a child, and later assisted him in guiding the clan to safety. It was all a fictional lesson meant to teach morals and inspire greatness, he was sure, but if the thought was there, perhaps the application could be, too.

"I don't really know how I would teach her," Ynaevir started, slowing his steps so they could talk a little more about the matter. It wouldn't be long before they reached the camp, he could hear distant voices ahead, along with bleating halla. "She would need to know commands that way she wouldn't charge ahead or get in between the animal and the arrow," the tall boy murmured, glancing at the cub in Gheyna's arms and reaching over to tickle his finger behind her ears.

"Oh, I guess you would need to figure that part out… Maybe if you just taught her to stay still? Instincts might cover the rest of it," Gheyna shrugged her shoulders.

The two of them entered the Dalish camp without much attention turning towards them. The Camp had moved much farther north, and it seemed to Ynaevir that they were dangerously close to Denerim. Whenever a portion of the city caught fire, he could see the smoke clouds billowing up and drifting over the forests. Sometimes he heard the hunters talking about travelers wandering through the woods, seeking shortcuts to long, dangerous roads. The forests were not at all hospitable to most humans, so why they tried, he wasn't sure. Regardless, it was here that the keeper had decided to move them, at least for a little while.

Tensions had been high within the camp because of it.

Of all the Dalish clans that wandered Thedas, Zathrian's was second among those least accustomed to sharing the lands with humans. The first among them was Hidukan's, who kept his clan deep within the Korcari Wilds. It had been over ten years since anyone had heard from them, as they had missed the last clan gathering. It was unknown if Hidukan even acted as their keeper any longer.

Passive aggressive arguments broke out amongst hunters when they tried to decide which direction they wanted to travel to hunt in. Game was surprisingly plentiful towards the northern edge of the woods, but many feared that humans would view the creatures that dwelled there as their own, and then seek payment for game that the dalish had rightfully caught on their own. Zathrian was ever more distant, trying to remain patient with his brood as they squabbled. It was necessary to be in the north. The clans would be coming to the brecilian forests for this decades gathering, and there had to be ample room. Five clans were expected to show up, all before the moon finished waning entirely.

Ynaevir, remembering nothing of the first and only gathering he had been to, was only concerned by the fact that they were close to a massive settlement of humans. Shemlen were filthy, evil creatures, and thinking of furred jawlines and fat round ears made his stomach pinch and turn, and his entire body would break out into a thin sheen of sweat. His only saving grace had been Da'gar, but even with her presence, sometimes the constant whispering in his head grew to be a steady, loud murmuring.

Reaching out to take the cub from Gheyna, Ynaevir faltered when the red-haired girl fixed him with an intense pout, ducking her chin down to rub it against Da'gar's shoulders.

"Can't I play with her while you talk to Hahren Vita? I'll bet that she'd get grumpy if you were distracted," Gheyna tried to tempt him, smiling sheepishly as her cheeks pinked. As she had gotten older, she had discovered that begging in this manner usually helped her get her way with just about every boy her age, and sometimes some of the older men of the clan. It didn't do much in the way of persuading the women, but that was another matter entirely.

Shifting uncomfortably, Ynaevir felt his heart beating a little bit faster and the idea of being separated from the cub. Gheyna would take care of her, he knew that, but it was the absence of a bundle of loving warmth in his hands that made him anxious. Surely things would be alright for as long as Hahren Vita spoke with him…? He doubted that he could devolve into an episode during such a short amount of time. Petting Da'gar one last time, he nodded his consent to Gheyna and then turned from her, finishing the walk to Hahren Vita's aravel. She was seated outside on the back steps, whittling as she often did to pass the time.

"You two took your time coming back," she chided him gently, smiling at the boy and rising to her feet. For as long as Ynaevir could remember, Vita had been old, but it seemed that lately, she had only grown even older, delicate bones protruding from sagging skin, her ear tips drooping down ever so slightly. Her eyes were slowly developing a delicate film over them, making them look glassy. She was stooped and frail, and it seemed that after each winter, there was less and less of her, and no chance of ever getting any of it back.

Dipping his head to the old woman, Ynaevir followed after her, prowling up the steps with an agonizing slowness born of hesitation. All of the children his age were required to have this talk, and from gossip, he had an idea as to what it entailed, and it made him even less eager to sit down and discuss it with Vita. Zathrian probed his mind often enough, always in subtle ways, but it never escaped Ynaevir's notice. He could only see this discussion turning in similar directions, seeing if Ynaevir's carnal urges—the possibility of him not yet having any didn't seem to be an option to any of the elders; all boys had them at his age, it seemed only natural—were healthy at their core, or born of the same violence that had been inflicted upon him several years ago.

Luckily for Ynaevir, in all truth, whatever violent thoughts were placed into his head by the awful whispering were never sexual in nature. It seemed that his body hadn't matured to a point to register such a possibility, and for that, he would have been grateful, if he had only known. As it was, making love to a mate seemed like such a distant, far off event that Ynaevir hadn't even started to consider what it might be like.

He knew of sex, as all Dalish children did, as the clan was never altogether shy about hiding their affections. Couples would make love with the doors to their aravels open, they would kiss each other, and men would cup their woman's breasts in their hands—all out in the open.

Ynaevir, as it happened, simply wasn't interested.

It was a thing that adults did with each other, and he wasn't yet an adult by Dalish standards. It didn't matter.

Seated across from Hahren Vita, Ynaevir fidgeted with his toes, bright green eyes trained down on the floor of the aravel, trying to identify where the different types of furs had come from while Hahren Vita explained the nature of their discussion.

"In a few more years, you'll be an adult in the clan," she started, studying the last of the older children she had to speak with, "When you're an adult, you'll be able to take a mate for yourself. Do you like the idea of that at all, Ynaevir?"

Ynaevir shook his head slowly, not looking up at her.

Vita smiled patiently, though her head tilted in a curious nature. Most boys didn't like the idea of settling with a mate, but with only very loose concepts of fidelity, there wasn't a necessity to do so.

"You don't have to have a mate if you'd rather not, Ynaevir, but just remember—our numbers are dwindling. Humans have many children together, and their children have children, but elves…" Vita tried to find the right words to explain her meaning to the boy that was approaching manhood, "We used to be immortal. A bonded pair may have a child together once every other century, but that isn't the way of things any longer. Our blood has quickened, our lives have shortened, but bearing children is still a rare and difficult thing." She wrung her hands together, eyes growing distant as she thought back to Ynaevir's birth mother. She had survived, initially, but in the days that followed, even with Zathrian's healing magic, the life faded from her more and more each day.

It was the unfortunate fate of a great number of Elvhenn women, but it did not change the circumstances. Their numbers had to increase. Zathrian and Vita had discussed it at length, and it was a matter that they would bring up in The Meeting of Keepers during the great gathering—each adult dalish in every clan should be responsible for producing a replacement for themselves, plus one more child.

"I don't want to have any children, Hahren Vita," Ynaevir murmured, the corner of his mouth giving an idle twitch. More than that—what dalish woman would want him to father her children? He was odd, and each of them knew it.

"That may change in the future, Da'len, and if it does, remember—you are responsible not only for yourself, but for what you contribute to the clan." The old woman reminded him, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. "Now then, lets talk about more present things."

Steeling himself for the invasive conversation ahead, Ynaevir nodded his head once.

Across the campsite, away from Hahren Vita and Ynaevir's discussion, Ghedan stood amongst a throng of other Dalish children, his eyes constantly flicking over to a blonde girl that would be on the brink of puberty at any moment, it seemed. She was sweet, and she liked his bold nature. More than that—sometimes, when it was cold in the mornings, he could see her nipples poking through the cloth halter that she wore.

That was, he decided, one of the best things about her.

"You know how to skin animals?" she whispered to him, grabbing onto his hand, as though she needed help in keeping his attention focused on her and her questions. Not yet considered old enough to help with kills the hunters brought back, Iniu had no reason to know how to handle the corpses, or what was done with them, but the knowledge the older boy held on them impressed her, even if it was unfounded.

The fact of the matter was that Ghedan didn't have the finesse to be a half-decent skinner.

The basics were simple enough, but the true art of it, like many other things, escaped him.

"Of course I do, I'll be a hunter soon," he forced a laugh that, to his credit, did not sound forced at all. The confidence that he carried with him had only grown larger with each year, though his focus and perspective on things were constantly jaded, despite all efforts from his elders to correct his behavior and outlook on life.

"Could you show me?" Iniu flashed him a smile, bringing her free hand up to swipe her hair back behind her ears.

Ghedan's eyes followed her hand, and his heart began to beat a little faster. When they were both adults, or perhaps a little before, if she didn't mind practicing, he was sure that they were going to mate. Perhaps he could father a child through her. Hahren Vita had told him about the lacking Elvhenn fertility, but he was confident in himself, if nothing else.

"Y-yeah, the next time the hunters bring back a…"

"But Ghedaaann, I'll never be close enough to watch you if it's one of those kills," Iniu protested, her lower lip beginning to stick out farther. In order to coach young children, the adults of the clan always hovered over them, watching their technique and offering pointers. As was the case in most things, children came last in line, unless they were being instructed.

"Oh, yeah, well… I'll—I'll find something else to skin for you," Ghedan promised her boldly, his eyes tracking around the camp, as though to try and seek out this unfortunate, unknown beast. The halla wouldn't do—none of them were going to die for a long time, and even when they did, they were buried with the same ceremony given to the clan members when they passed away. Chipmunks and squirrels were hard to catch, and not very impressive, larger predators were dangerous…

Unless they weren't. Unless they were still young.

Ghedan's eyes stopped roaming once they settled on the forest lion cub, pouncing on a fish's tail fin.

He could manage that.


End file.
